Islamism vs Islam

'By the Qur'an jammed packed with wisdom, thou are indeed one of the messengers on a straight way' {Q.36v1}

So make sure when you say you’re 'in it, but not of it'

You’re not helping to make this earth a place called Hell *

All Islam is not Political !

When Islam becomes ideologized (an ideology not a comprehensive religion) which is the same as being politicized, rather than being a method of self purification and a way of serving Allah and humanity, it steps down from the high heavens to dwell beneath the feet of corrupt and greedy men.

Definition: ideologize, 1) to give an ideological character or interpretation to some entity, i.e. principles, moral code etc. 2) to change or interpret in relation to a sociopolitical ideology often seen as biased or limited

This position does not mean that Muslims cannot agitate against tyranny and oppression but it does mean that the goal of our strivings as humans is to purify our hearts in order to gain Allah’s pleasure, our goal or ‘end game’ is to attain Allah's paradise in the next life not to establish an ‘Islamic State’.

Islamism is the very same kind of political entity that is Zionism only in the hands of Muslims.

Islamism = Zionism as political constructs. So if you oppose Zionism you should equally oppose Islamism.

O ye who Believe, we should oppose Islamism and the quest for an Islamic State because Islamism seeks to change the essence of Islam and substitute chauvinism, militarism and loyalty to the Islamic State for the lofty and unchangeable principles of the Muslim faith given to us by Allah and our Beloved Prophet Muhammad (pboh).

In Islamism, the state is the idol that takes the place of Allah. Islamism uses religious language to attain a political end. This concept was unknown before the writings of Abu A’la Maududi of Pakistan and Syed Qutb of Egypt.

For example: Jahaliyyah was, for the past 1400 years, always understood to be the period of time of the pagan, idolatrous control of the Meccans prior to the Qur'an being revealed to Prophet Muhammad (pboh) and with the acceptance of Islam, the jahalliyah period ended. We must remember that he (pboh) came to rid the Arabs of idol worship and purify the House of Allah, as a mercy to all mankind, and then the period of jahaliyyah was over. We think of jahalliyah as a specific time period in the same way we think of the time period of the Middle Ages in Europe, its over.

However, under Islamist thinking, Jahaliyyah is no longer a past historical period, it is any social situation that is not Muslim or governed by Muslims.

Another example: Prior to Islamist thinking, when someone chose not to be Muslim after hearing about Islam they remained either Christian or Jew etc.. The Prophet did not refer to the Jewish or Christian tribes as kafirs, no, they remained what they were and had always been, ‘ahl kitab, people of the Book. However now, with Islamists redefining religious terms, anyone that does not become Muslim after hearing about Islam is Kafir, and so it becomes alright to dehumanize them or wage war against them, this would include many of our parents and relatives. Was this the sunnah of Muhammad (pboh) ?

"If Allah had not checked one set of people by means of another, there would surely have been pulled down monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques in which the Name of Allah is commemorated in abundant measure." 22:40 Sura al Hajj

It doesn’t matter that there are scholars that justify worshipping at the altar of Islamist thinking. They are, Islamist scholars. They have imbibed the Islamist ‘kool aid’. In the very same way that there were and probably are still scholars that justify racism, (does anyone remember the ‘Bell-Curve’), eugenics or any number of deviant philosophies. Scholars are just academics and prone to error just like you and me. To be a Muslim scholar only means that this person has put some time into the academic study of things 'Muslim', it does not mean that the conclusions that the scholar reaches are always the correct ones. Nor does it mean that a scholars position is beyond critique. This is why there are differences among the scholars, as there should be. (see my essay on Scholars)

And whatever good they do, they shall never be denied the reward thereof: for, Allah has full knowledge of those who are conscious of Him. SURA al IMRAN 113-115

The Ibrahim Spectral Analysis Chart

This Islamist thinking is a recently innovated perspective. It is a post-modern movement, unheard of in the annals of Muslim history and increases in momentum because of its ‘in your face aggressiveness’, which is exactly what a defeated people look to when other avenues of legitimate expressions fail.

One of the striking facts of the modern ethic of knowledge transmission in Islam is that it has frequently been dominated by intellectuals who underwent no training with shaykhs. Sayyid Qutb, one of the founding fathers of Islamism……... His masterwork, In the Shade of the Qurʾan, is often sold alongside classical tafsīr (exegesis) in Islamic bookstores around the world, but Qutb was trained as an academic literary critic, not an exegete. In the words of Arabic literary scholar Issa Boullata, says “Sayyid Qutb’s Qurʾanic commentary is not similar to works of exegesis known as tafsir. . . . It is rather a free expression of his feelings and thoughts as he religiously reads the Holy Book he loves.” The work contains almost no reference to classical tafsīr. Qutb was part of the first generation of Egyptians to study in state schools and modernized Islamic educational institutions. He attended an Egyptian Qurʾan school (kuttāb) for only a single day.....

— Ware III, Rudolph T. (2014-06-16). The Walking Qur'an: Islamic Education, Embodied Knowledge, and History in West Africa, The University of North Carolina Press

The observant Jews faced the same problem:

The Orthodox Rabbinical Scholars were overwhelmingly opposed to Zionism prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 for the very same reasons. They were concerned that the Jewish faith and lofty religious principles that have survived in tact for over 5000 years would take a back seat to the body politic of the zionist state. And they were right. And in many ways, the advent of Islamism is a reaction to the State of Israel because the Muslims felt impotent and powerless to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state in their own backyard and so some intellectuals innovated a counter political philosophy which held that the establishment of the Islamic State was the primary objective of all Muslim endeavors. It is important to note that prior to the establishment of the State of Israel, Muslims weren’t concerned with Kalifah movements, not in the 1920's after the dissolution of the Ottoman Kaliphate or in the 1930's , or in the 1940 or in the 1950 or even in the 1960' when the most prominent and potent political entity (after the Nasser's Arab nationalist experiment in Egypt) in the whole Muslim world was al Fattah, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, a secular socialist entity.

There had been some anti-colonial activities in Lybia and in the Sudan, for example, but again these were localized and very specific in their political expectations. So nobody was concerned with the ideas of an Islamic State until the successes of competing socialistic ideas both from the USSR and Maoist China were witnessed by the world. Only then did the ideas of re-defining Islam as a 'politique' , not a deen, begin being discussed with the idea of establishing a state. Before that, Muslims were content with practicing this deen and demonstrating Allah’s grace to them by becoming the embodiment of Muslim morals, halal business practices and wholesome living.